WordPress treats two versions of the same theme

robiulroky

There are a bunch of ways to do it. First, you can simply copy the files to your computer using FTP Clients or Unix Shell Skills. You can also use WinSCP to keep a “mirror” on your desktop that updates with your site.

Or, there’s a laundry list of free automatic backup plugins, as well as premium options. Here at WPExplorer we use VaultPress, and in the past we have used Solid Backups – both of which are great options for creating and maintaining regular backups of your website (in addition to the daily backups provided by most managed WordPress hosting plans).

Finally, cPanel, Direct Admin, Ensim, Plesk, vDeck and Ferozo all have unique Country Email List ways to back up sites hosted with them. Comprehensive instructions for that can be found in the WordPress Codex. In a worst-case scenario, when you lose something you really need, you can contact your host. Most hosts back up their sites, but it can be a pain to get the data back from them.




Test Your Changes
Finally, you can upgrade manually or automatically. With manual upgrading, you can test the changes to see if they ruin your site or not.  as two different themes. Meaning, if you have GenericTheme V1 and GenericTheme V1.1 in your wp-content/themes folder, they’ll be treated as two different themes. This means you can have multiple versions of the same theme installed on your site. At the very least, you can use this to switch between your old, customized version and your new one, so you have a reference should you choose to rebuild it from the ground up with child themes.

Conclusion
The prospect of losing the customizations you worked so hard on can be daunting, and the update process can seem like it railroads you into that. But, with child themes (or plugins, or frameworks) and a little foresight, it doesn’t have to be. Do you have any other ideas for making regular updates to WordPress sites without losing customization? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.